The Worship of The Golden Calf.

A Story of Wage-Slavery in Massachusetts.

By Charles Sheldon French.

DALTON, MASS.: C. Sheldon French, Publisher, 35 John Street.

PITTSFIELD, MASS.: William J. Oatman, Printer, 536 North Street. 1908.

COPYRIGHT, 1908, By CHARLES SHELDON FRENCH.

NOTE. Since Chapter VIII was written Massachusetts law has been so amended that $10,000, instead of $5,000, may now be collected for a human life lost through the negligence of a railroad or street railway corporation.

CHAPTER I.

THE snows had begun to disappear from the far-famed valleys of Berkshire; the mountain-tops and slopes were still white; in the softening air was the promise of the return of birds and flowers; Nature was relenting from her winter harshness, but man was less kindly than Nature.

On Beauna Vista, one of the hillocks rising slightly above the level of the Housatonic Valley, the day’s work was done, and John Wycliff, a farm-laborer, was awaiting the pay for his last month’s work before returning home.

There was nothing prepossessing about Wycliff’s appearance. Short of stature, minus one eye which he had lost in an encounter with the Indians, with a bent nose, a souvenir of a cattle-stampede on the plains,—he was tough and wiry as a lynx, and his features betrayed almost as little emotion as that animal.

His experience had been largely of a[6] kind to make him suspicious of his fellows, and alert for self-defence. He had knocked about the East in a variety of occupations, and in the West had been editor, cow-boy and gold-miner. He had seen varying fortunes, having been once part owner of a gold mine. He had lost all and was now a common laborer again. Although he still retained his interest in the mine, it was considered worthless. He had hopes that sometime it might become valuable again through the invention of cheaper methods of separating the gold from the rock.

Jacob Sharp, the farm-superintendent, was, in appearance, a typical Yankee. He was tall and angular, with blue eyes, which sometimes kindled with a kindly light, but which oftener showed a steely luster suggesting something of the serpent. The nose was the most prominent feature. It was large and sharply defined, and he had a habit, when excited, of blowing it vigorously.

On this occasion a trumpet-like blast first warned John Wycliff that Boss Sharp[7] had something on his mind. He blew his nose loudly several times, while the blue eyes seemed to retreat more deeply into their sockets and to give out a snaky leer. After an unusually loud blast, which testified to the healthy condition of his lungs, he pulled some bank-notes from his pocket.

“Twenty-five dollars,” he said, handing the notes to Wycliff. “I have retained five dollars for Mr. Bothan on the bill which you owe him.”

“But you agreed to pay me thirty-five dollars per month,” replied Wycliff. “I am very poorly situated at this time for losing any part of my earnings. I should be glad to pay all my debts in full at once, but at present my wages will barely supply the necessities of life for my family.” Then, turning to Mr. Bothan, who stood near by, he continued, “Both law and gospel make it a man’s first duty to provide for his family. Besides, you should have no preference over my other creditors.”

But the words were wasted. Wycliff[8] might as well have appealed to the flint boulders on the mountain side. Sharp insisted that he had agreed to pay him only thirty dollars per month, and he also insisted on paying five dollars of that sum to Richard Bothan on Wycliff’s debt. He even threatened to discharge Wycliff if the latter should take advantage of the Bankruptcy Law and thus place Mr. Bothan on a level with other creditors. Wycliff received twenty-five dollars and walked away.

Mr. Sharp then passed a five dollar note to Mr. Bothan, who returned him one of smaller denomination with the remark, “Here’s a dollar for collecting.”

The men then separated, unconscious that there had been any witness of their conversation. Only a few steps distant, where a rustic watering-trough was hidden from sight by a clump of low hemlock bushes, two horseback-riders, a lady and a gentleman, had paused to let their horses drink.

“What a spectacle that is!” exclaimed the gentleman; “Congressman Baldwin,[9] one of the owners of this farm, belongs to the national legislative body which passed the Bankruptcy Law, and here we see his foreman threatening to discharge a workman for accepting the benefits of that law. The law is designed to relieve those who are unable to pay their debts. Congressman Baldwin is sworn to uphold the law. His foreman, Jacob Sharp, is doing his best, in this instance, to destroy the law. I don’t believe David Baldwin, the Congressman, would feel very proud of his foreman if he witnessed this scene.”

“Would his brother and partner, Zechariah Baldwin, approve of it?” asked the lady.

“I cannot say,” replied the gentleman. “Zechariah Baldwin has less sense of justice or love for his workmen than his brother David. But this is a mean act, at any rate. Mr. Sharp has no moral or legal rights to withhold the workman’s wages and it is contemptible at this time, because Mr. Wycliff has a child very sick and needs every dollar he can earn. I[10] am surprised that such a man as Sharp, who is notorious for cheating his workmen, should hold so high a position in the church.”

“It is much easier to criticise the church than to help in the good work which the church is doing,” answered the lady tartly.

“We have a right to criticise the church if she fails to take up the work which the Master left for her to do;” replied the gentleman, but the lady was offended, and the remainder of the journey was passed in silence.

Meanwhile John Wycliff found little to comfort him on his return home.

“Robert has been growing worse all day;” were the first words of his wife: “The Doctor gives very little encouragement. He says that to-night will decide and that he is so frail and sensitive that we must gratify all his whims. Whatever he wants we must promise to get it for him. The Doctor says we must not cross him the least bit in any of his wishes.”

[11]The wife and mother—a slight, sensitive thing—dropped upon her knees, buried her face in the bed-clothes, and prayed for her son in words which reached no ear but the Almighty’s. Then she lay down upon a couch, exhausted by days and nights of watching.

The mother slept. The boy lay for the most part quietly, his spirit fluttering as lightly as a butterfly’s wing between life and death. The father sat beside the crib where his child lay, and watched his every movement, bending down frequently and placing his ear close to the little sufferer’s face, to learn if he were still breathing. Once he woke his wife hurriedly, thinking that the end had come. But life still lingered.

There was a distant rumble of wheels. John Wycliff recognized the sound of that vehicle, and it made him for the moment desperate. Some of the rough points of his Western life had ingrained themselves in his nature, and one characteristic memento of that strenuous time was at hand in a bureau-drawer.

[12]He glanced at his wife. She was in a sound sleep. He bent down and caught the sound of the boy’s breathing. Then he sprang to the bureau and rushed, coatless and hatless, into the street.

Jacob Sharp was alone on his way to the mid-weekly evening prayer meeting. When he came into the shaft of light thrown from the sick-room window, his horse was grasped by the bridle, while a low voice said: “Pay me the wages you defrauded me of!” and a pistol gleamed in Sharp’s face.

“Be quick!” the voice added, as Mr. Sharp’s right hand went up, as was his habit when excited, to blow his nose. The hand dropped quickly to his pocket, and a ten-dollar note was handed over.

“Take legal action about this if you choose, Mr. Sharp,” said Wycliff. “I can land you in prison and for more than one offense.”

“Say nothing, and I will say nothing;” replied Sharp as he drove on. Wycliff’s challenge uncovered a chapter in Sharp’s history which he had fancied[13] covered up and which he did not wish exposed. This adventure filled only a very brief time, and again Wycliff was by the bedside.

The little lips moved feebly. He placed his ear close to them.

“Pop—will I—have—pony—cart—heaven?”

It was with great difficulty that he gathered the words. Heaven! What did he know about heaven? What did he care about it if such men as Jacob Sharp and Richard Bothan were its representatives here on earth? But he answered instantly, recalling the doctor’s warning, and bending close to the child’s ear:

“Yes, you will have everything you want there.”

And then, very slowly and very feebly—so slowly and so feebly that his coarse senses could hardly be sure of the scarcely whispered words—came the “Pop—will I—ever—have—pony—cart—here?”

There was but an instant’s hesitation,[14] as the father recalled his inability to fulfil his promise, and he replied, watching his child’s face as the fluttering spirit caught the meaning:

“Yes, Robbie, if you will stay with us you shall have a pony and a cart.”

This had been the height of the child’s desire, his highest idea of happiness, his heaven—to have a pony and a cart. In sight of the other shore, and with voices, perhaps, which his father’s coarse ear could not hear, calling him thither, he was willing to stay on this side if his desire might be gratified.

The father thought he saw the slightest trace of a smile on the thin face. The boy slept. More than once there were brief intervals when the father could not detect his son’s breathing, but as the hours wore away there seemed to be a gain.

Meanwhile the father’s memory was busy. As a lightning-flash, in the night, for an instant illuminates the entire landscape, so his son’s question flashed his whole life in review before him. He recalled[15] the day, when, with high ideals, he had pledged himself to Christ in the little country meeting-house, and the church had pledged friendship to him. Later some of these comrades in the church had defrauded him of all he possessed. To-day the worst enemies of himself and of every other workingman in the town of Papyrus, were pillars in the fashionable church of that place. These things stood out in bold relief to-night, as bold as the mountain’s rugged outline when the lightning’s flash illumines it.

“The First Church of Papyrus,” Wycliff had once said to Deacon Surface, “does not stand for righteousness. It will whitewash any wrong done by its wealthy members. Our pastor is eloquent in condemning the disfranchisement of the negroes of the South, but does not say one word to condemn the disfranchisement of mill-hands in Papyrus. Employees in the Baldwin Mills are prevented from voting appropriations for schools, roads, street-lights, and other[16] public benefits in their own town. To be consistent, you should place the sign of the Almighty Dollar on the pinnacle of your beautiful church, and inscribe over the altar these words: ‘The rich can do no wrong.’”

Deacon Surface, who belonged, body and soul to the Baldwins, had been horrified at Wycliff, whom he regarded as little better than an infidel. Wycliff regarded Deacon Surface and his kind, as followers of the Master only for the ‘loaves and fishes.’

But the night wore away. The boy was better. The mother was worn out, and Wycliff remained at home to care for his wife and child.

Jacob Sharp was an early caller.

“Your position will be open to you, at thirty-five dollars per month, whenever you can come back;” he said.

But Wycliff was never to return.

CHAPTER II.

“GOOD afternoon, Mr. Moriarty.”

It was Deacon Surface who spoke, a gentleman who owed such influence as he possessed to the fact that he was an agent of the Baldwins, collecting their rents, superintending in a general way some of their enterprises, and administering their local charities.

He was a man of excellent intentions, but shallow. One of his best friends thus described him:—“The Deacon has as many sides as a barrel. He doesn’t want to make any enemies, but when he is cornered, he will roll toward the money every time. If the Deacon were a judge, and a man were brought before him charged with stealing one hundred dollars, and the charge were proved, he would order the money divided equally between the thief and his victim. That is just about his idea of justice.”

The Deacon’s critics, if put in his place, would perhaps do no better than[18] he. Being the personal and confidential agent of the Baldwins, he must accept their ideas of right and wrong, adopt their conscience, as it were, or else surrender a fat job such as seldom comes to a man of common ability.

“The top of the afternoon to you!” replied the Irishman addressed, whose traits were quite different from the Deacon’s.

“Of course you are going to vote for Jacob Sharp for Selectman,” remarked the Deacon.

“The divil a bit will I vote for Jake Sharp for any office, Deacon Surface.”

“Indeed, Mr. Sharp is a fine Christian gentleman.”

“Do yez call the likes of old Jake Sharp, the slave-driver, a fine Christian gentleman? A liar, a thief, and a murderer is what he is.”

Good Deacon Surface was shocked.

“Those are pretty hard names to apply to a neighbor, Mr. Moriarty. I think you would find it very difficult to prove that Mr. Sharp is what you call him.”

[19]“Indade I would not,” replied the indignant son of Erin. “A liar? Did he ever pay a man the wages he agreed to? Not if he could help it. Didn’t young Mike Silk knock him down flat in his tracks before Old Sharp could remember that he promised to pay him two dollars a day in haying? He remembered it all right after Mike flattened him. Oh, it’s a bad memory he has, all right.

“A thief? Sure it’s yourself he was after st’aling a shovel from. And sure it’s your own memory needs bracing up, too. It’s your own shovel he was st’aling, whittling off your name and branding on his own with a red-hot iron. Forgot all about it, have yez? Do yez forget the time when he stole his own daughter’s money, that he was guardian for, and lost it, and the poor girl was nigh going crazy over it? It’s surely a poor memory ye has, Deacon Surface.

“A murderer? I haven’t forgotten the day when he hurried young Pat Flynn in the hay-field till the poor fellow[20] dropped dead by the side of me with sun-stroke. I niver shall forget it in this world. And when David Baldwin, the Congressman, asked Sharp why did he hurry the lad such a hot day, wasn’t the old villain after saying it was liquor that killed him? And the poor lad never tasted liquor. If that wasn’t murder, what would yez call it? An awful poor memory yez have, all at once, Deacon Surface.

“And ye’ve forgot, too, how old Sharp sold the dis’ased meat in the city, haven’t yez? Ye’ve forgot intirely how two children were killed by that same meat, so the doctors said? And that is what yez call a fine Christian gentleman in the First Church, is it?”

“But the meat charge was never proved,” protested Deacon Surface.

“And it’s yerself knows as well as anybody why it wasn’t proved—because Zach Baldwin wanted it hushed up. It can be proved to-day if John Wycliff and meself, and one other man I could name, were called as witnesses.”

[21]Deacon Surface realized that he was not gaining ground, and changed his tactics.

“You had work on Congressman Baldwin’s new streets at Maple Heights, last fall, did you not?”

“Indade I did, and I earned ivery cint I got, too, so I did, Deacon Surface.”

“But there will be no work at Maple Heights this year unless Mr. Sharp is elected Selectman.”

“Maple Heights may go to Perdition. I’ll not vote for old Jake Sharp if I niver get another day’s work from the Baldwins. The likes of yerself cannot drive Dave Moriarty one inch. Ye may stand there and threaten till doomsday. I’ll not vote for that slave-driver, Sharp. He ought to be behind the bars.”

Deacon Surface moved on, to appeal to workmen who would “hear to reason,” as he expressed it.

As for David Moriarty, he hurried over to his neighbor, John Wycliff, to tell him of this latest game of the Baldwins. He had barely left Wycliff’s, to return, when[22] Hugh Maxwell called to see John Wycliff.

This gentleman was fully as easy and gracious in his manner, fully as well qualified to get through the world without provoking opposition, as Deacon Surface; but, unlike the Deacon, he had to depend upon his own resources, with no millionaires to back him. He had a good business as a retail merchant, and in building up his trade had won many friends and very little enmity. Mere formalities over, Mr. Maxwell asked:

“What would be my chances in a campaign against Jacob Sharp?”

“If it were a perfectly fair election, they ought to be the very best,” replied Wycliff. “The workingmen, who form the large majority of the voters of Papyrus, are favorable to you. But Mr. Sharp is the candidate of the millionaire paper-makers, and they practically own the town. You know the methods which the Baldwins will use as well as I do. Coaxing and threatening, of the kind which Deacon Surface knows so well how to use, will have their effect. Any[23] employee of the Baldwins who openly advocates your election will lose his job. The Baldwins are already promising employment if you are defeated, and threatening to take away employment if you are elected. Work on the new streets at Maple Heights, will not be the only job held up to the unemployed as a bribe and a threat in this election. The cry is already raised by the Baldwin agents: ‘Elect Sharp, and the Baldwins will build a sewer for Papyrus; defeat Sharp, and the Baldwins will defeat the sewer.’ This cowardly sort of bribery and threat is permitted by Massachusetts Law, and the Baldwins know full well how to use

it. Still, if you wish to run against Sharp for Selectman, I will place your name before the voters of Papyrus, through the columns of the Elmfield Star.”

Wycliff obtained from Hugh Maxwell a few facts which he needed, and his caller departed; not, however, without leaving a ten-dollar note, in appreciation of the service which Wycliff was to undertake[24] for him. Wycliff then attended to household duties, and performed little services for the sick ones, who were improving very slowly.

Then he wrote a letter to the Star, advocating Hugh Maxwell’s election as Selectman. The task was a pleasant one. He mentioned Mr. Maxwell’s lifelong residence in Papyrus; his courtesy,—“He is always and everywhere a gentleman;” his honesty,—“Who ever heard Hugh Maxwell’s word questioned in the smallest particular?”—his qualifications for office from a business point of view,—“The man who has built up, from nothing, a good business of his own, has some qualities needed in the public service;” his popularity,—“He has the good will alike of the employer and the workingman.”

Experience had taught Wycliff the folly of exaggeration, and his nomination of Hugh Maxwell for Selectman was recognized by readers of the Star as a correct description of the man, and not overdrawn.

[25]Wycliff’s home duties were interrupted in the evening by another aspirant for political honors—Herman Schuyler, an extensive farmer, and also a dealer in a variety of goods. In one respect Schuyler was the only honest man of means in Papyrus. He had broken all known records by appearing at the office of the assessors of Papyrus, and demanding that ten thousand dollars be added to his assessed valuation.

“I am worth fifty thousand dollars,” he had said to the Assessors. “My property will sell for that, to-day. I am not so mean as to be unwilling to pay a tax on every dollar God has given me.”